Shrek Easily Passes
$125 Million Mark(by digitalmediafx.com) On Friday, Shrek easily blew by the
$125 million mark as it continues to perform very strong at the Box Office.
With two weeks left before it faces competition from Disney's Atlantis:
The Lost Empire and Paramount Pictures Tomb Raider, Shrek looks
to be easily headed towards the $200 million mark. Some analysts are predicting
that it will give The Lion King a run for its money as the highest
grossing animated movie of all time (not calculating for inflation).

On Friday, the number
of theaters Shrek was playing in expanded from 3,623 to 3,661.
It made $6.7 million on Friday to bring its total to $126.9 million in
just 15 days.

Atlantis: The Lost
Empire World Premiere Today(by digitalmediafx.com) As mentioned in Friday's dFX
Animation and FX News newsletter, Walt Disney Pictures is holding
the world premiere of Atlantis: The Lost Empire today at the historic
El Capitan Theater in Hollywood.

U.S. Theater Chains
Procrastinate Over Digital Theaters(by digitalmediafx.com) Theater chains and movie studios are moving
slowly with the creation of digital movie theaters even though years of
testing have been highly successful and audience reaction to the vibrant
and sharp image has been outstanding.

While the U.S. continues
to procrastinate in advancing the technology, Japan is already set to
open its second all-digital cinema complex on July 13, 2001 in Niigata.
Japanese studios broadcast films via satellite, which are received at
the theater complex and digitally projected to the appropriate movie screen.

"David Manning
of The Ridgefield Press is one of Columbia Pictures most reliable
reviewers, praising Heath Ledger of A Knights Tale as 'this
years hottest new star!' and saluting The Animal as 'another
winner!' The studio plastered Mannings raves over at least four
different movie advertisements, including Hollow Man and Vertical
Limit. But Mannings own life story should be called 'Charade,'
because he doesnt exist. "